The present invention relates to the field of lubrication for aircraft engines. It more particularly relates to a device for collecting oil that has been used by a piece of equipment including a rotary part.
For example, a turboprop with counter-rotating propellers may include a power gear box (PGB) whose planet gear support rotates inside a static enclosure.
The planet gear support forms a cap around the rolling bearings and gears of the PGB. The oil injected continuously into the PGB lubricates and cools the rolling bearings and gears before being sprayed by centrifugation against the planet gears support. The planet gear support includes orifices through which this oil can escape toward the static enclosure, which serves as a collection enclosure to return the oil into the lubrication circuit.
The PGB requires a large quantity of oil. For effective oil collection toward the oil discharge means of the enclosure and to avoid clogging, it is important to guide the jets leaving the orifices of the planet gear support such that the oil sprayed against the wall of the enclosure forms a ring driven in a rotating overall movement. The more stable the spring is, the fewer splashes there are, and the better the oil recovery is in the enclosure.
The oil passage orifices in the planet gear support are generally oversized to avoid a risk of oil accumulation in the rotary part. In so doing, the section of these orifices does not correspond to the section of the oil jet that traverses them. It is then difficult to predict the radial component of the jet leaving the orifices, and therefore to control its direction. Under these conditions, the development of an effective oil collection system in the static enclosure is problematic, at least in the case of reduction gears requiring a high lubrication flow rate.
The present invention aims to propose a simple solution for effectively collecting the oil flow leaving a piece of equipment, in particular a piece of equipment rotating in a lubricating enclosure.